Here I have outlined some musings on the upcoming Simcity game. All this is based on publicly available information and a few assumptions.
The Good
The Bad
The Meh
The Good
- Curvy Roads and Bridges (Yes Bridges). The grid is gone but there is still tools that allow grid cities to be made and optimised road placement.
- Better terrain management. You can build on hills.
- Light Rail
- Proper sewage management
- Multiplayer regions. There are both public and private options for this.
- True Regional Gameplay. You will need more than one city to advance the game but you can share everything from cash to resources to criminals (And services).
- Global trading. You can trade on the global market which will grow and fluctuate.
- Modular buildings. No need to always build another fire station, just extend the one you have
- Good foundation for modding expansion packs. With resource chains and the Glass Box engine, there is a lot more flexibility with adding new content. (Caveat though, see The Ugly)
The Bad
- No terraforming tools confirmed. This will change. I would expect a regional generation and terraforming tool will be released with the mod support patch.
- No subways. Again, expect this as a mod or a patch quite soon after release.
- Fixed City size. They say they fixed it because any bigger and you repeat sections. While it is still decent, I expect it was for performance issues and management. I don't expect a patch for this, but I do expect a mod.
- No farms. This is prime ground for an expansion pack though adding the whole workflow of food and clothing.
- Always on internet connection. This is a common bug bear. I see that there are 3 key parts to the connection. DRM, Global Resource Market and Regional Simulation. The DRM factor is unknown at this stage, but I suspect that it could be removed in a patch after launch (but not explicitly). The Global Resource Market will probably generate a 3rd party market and server. I am not sure if it will be sanctioned, but modders will make it happen. Final the Regional Simulation. This is unknown. While there could be a chance to get a 3rd party solution happening, don't bet on it. This is probably the weak point for the future of the game.
- No modding tools on release. They do say they will work on it, but I would be surprised if it is more than 2-3 months after. The community will probably do their best to create their own tools (Like minecraft).
The Meh
- Mega Projects. There are 4 mega projects to complete in each region. These include: International Airport (There is still a local airport available), Space Center and a Solar Power Station. I don't know what the others are yet.
- Leaderboards. You will be able to find the best in any category. What will make this worthwhile however is local leaderboards for groups like Orbiter-Forum.